re: Any conservatives concerned with growing wealth discrepancy?

I think that from now on I'll refer to our poor as the "American-poor" and do the hyphen thing like in "African-American". Our poor are exceptional, and deserve differentiation from all other poor because compared to the world-poor, the American-poor are rich bastards.

Our rich are kinda like rich people anywhere else in the world, but our poor? They are special.

re: Any conservatives concerned with growing wealth discrepancy?(Posted by souldog on 12/12/12 at 1:31 am to TrueTiger)

quote:I think that from now on I'll refer to our poor as the "American-poor" and do the hyphen thing like in "African-American".

From your words I am thinking you were a speech writer for Mitt Romney. Let me just try to explain this one more time for all the Republicans.

You live on the finest street in town and have a huge beautiful house with a huge beautiful wife and kids. There are nine other "men of industry" who support you and your brilliance. When you stand on your porch each morning the sun turns to acknowledge you as the true master of the day, and the hardest working man on the planet (since James Brown has left).

Across the street are the 10 poor, lazy, non-white, mooching, godless, people. Thankfully, Sarah Palin (praise Jesus!!!)has pointed out that our Constitution should be revered and "WE THE PEOPLE" is the law of the land. Your 9 people and the 10, well we know they're vagarants, all go to vote under our laws. We all vote on what is the best way to proceed with what's best for the street.

Gee, what do you think is going to happen?

Allow me to praise you and your accomplishments one more time before voting again. Thank you!

re: Any conservatives concerned with growing wealth discrepancy?(Posted by Jim Rockford on 12/12/12 at 2:28 am to mograyback)

quote:The free market hasn't been truly free for about 100 years.

I would argue that their has never been a free market outside of economic theory. It's always regulated in some manner, or in the absence of regulation, someone is always trying to rig it to his benefit, with varying degrees of success. Usually both are happening at the same time.

re: Any conservatives concerned with growing wealth discrepancy?(Posted by CITWTT on 12/12/12 at 7:29 am to Lookin4Par)

quote:At what point do we realize that the tipping point is near?

When people start killing others for what they didn't work for and do not deserve to own at all. The lowering of what people will kill for was demonstrated two days go to show the concept of avarice in its raw state. A woman was killed for not giving a group of teenagers a cigarette or two. That is roughly between twenty cents to fifty cents each cigarette they were denied by her and she paid with her life.

re: Any conservatives concerned with growing wealth discrepancy?(Posted by Ace Midnight on 12/12/12 at 8:36 am to CITWTT)

quote:A woman was killed for not giving a group of teenagers a cigarette or two. That is roughly between twenty cents to fifty cents each cigarette they were denied by her and she paid with her life.

In addition to denying them the fruits of her labor, she admonished them to "Get a job", which branded her as an evil conservative marked for elimination, anyway. Probably justified or at least inevitable. They were minors, so the looming consequences for them are likely nominal.

re: Any conservatives concerned with growing wealth discrepancy?(Posted by NC_Tigah on 12/12/12 at 8:49 am to souldog)

quote:Across the street are the 10 poor, lazy, non-white, mooching, godless, people. Thankfully, Sarah Palin (praise Jesus!!!)has pointed out that our Constitution should be revered and "WE THE PEOPLE" is the law of the land. Your 9 people and the 10, well we know they're vagarants, all go to vote under our laws. We all vote on what is the best way to proceed with what's best for the street.

Allow me to praise you and your accomplishments one more time before voting again. Thank you!

Sad.

You honestly think you're getting after the successful "Republican" across the street?

Really? Is that what you think?

You poor, poor fool.

Here's lay of the land. That "fellow across the street," the true master of the day, he's pretty good at keeping his money. He'll duck and dodge. He'll bob and weave. Your desire to nail that "hardest working man on the planet" with selective taxes will instead crush you and your kids. Brutally. I feel badly for you. I feel badly for your kids. I feel badly for my kids, but at some point it's become a hopeless inevitable tragedy. Your desire for entitlements is driving debt. 100% of that "rich" guy's income cannot fund the debt you're driving. Not close. As you point out, there are 10 of you, yet just one of him.

Your enemy is the cost of debt. Debt service, or interest on the debt, is the fastest growing portion of the US budget. It currently runs 10.5% of revenue. Interest on the debt is our only truly nondiscretionary budget item. Obviously the debt is growing, and with it grows the cost of funding it. It's growing in no small part because your "10 poor, lazy, non-white, mooching, godless people" feel "entitled" to something. They want their freebies. They expect them. As you say, they vote. But once again as the debt grows, so too does the percent of revenue required to service it. That is not even the ominous part.

Interest rates are at an all time low. At present, interest costs to service the debt run around 1.3%. Historical rates have been 3X higher. A return to NORMAL rates would increase cost of funding the debt to 33% of revenue, or around 23% of overall budget at today's borrowing rate.

Now I know you're not interested in reality. I know you couldn't care less about facts. I know you think it's cruel to expect that when one seeks a helping hand, he should look first to the end of his own arm. But the fact is, your nemesis isn't that rich guy. Your nemesis is the cost of funding debt for all the services you expect to be given. Debt is a cold unfeeling enemy, and he will take you down with not one tear shed.

re: Any conservatives concerned with growing wealth discrepancy?(Posted by doubleb on 12/12/12 at 9:01 am to Lookin4Par)

quote:You sound really intelligent. You should understand my concern when labor wages are stagnant while the corporations are breaking records. What happens when labor gets left behind?

You can not focus just on wages because an employee's total compensation package in modern day America includes pension(retirement), health insurance, and other perks depending on position(s).

As expenses rise employees have chosen in a lot of cases to get benefits (tax free I might add) instead of wage increases.

Corporations may be breaking records, but are small businesses and middle size businesses. I'm not so sure of that.

I know I just started a business and you wouldn't believe the services I provide for the govt. free of charge. I collect income tax, soc. security taxes, sales taxes, etc. I garnish wages for guys behind on the child payments. I pay licensing fees to operate, I pay property tax, and a whole lot of other expenses that are going up.

Many millions of Americans are like me. Little guys who are risking their wealth (uyes I had to write a check to capitalize my business) and try to build a company.

We hire and pay good wages, we pay health ins., and pension, etc. We don't hire part timers, our people are all fulltime.

My advice to you is look at the entire picture, not just wages. Look at all the expenses involved to employ a person, and not just what his wages are and I think you'll be surprised.

I for one would love to write out one big check which covered everything for that employee and let him see how much he costs me an hour and then let him sit down and pay all the taxes, insurance, and other thing that I pay on his behalf every week.

I think if he saw all the money that he had earned that he didn't keep, he might take more of an active role in society and he'd be apt to be more concerned what the pols did with his money.

re: Any conservatives concerned with growing wealth discrepancy?(Posted by NC_Tigah on 12/12/12 at 9:51 am to doubleb)

Today Obama is proclaiming the GOP will cave on taxes. So assuming no economic impact (bad assumption), Obama will have locked in between $30Billion and $80Billion in revenue. That is juxtaposed against a $1,300 Billion ($1.3Tn) deficit.

re: Any conservatives concerned with growing wealth discrepancy?(Posted by Diamondawg on 12/12/12 at 10:02 am to doubleb)

quote:I for one would love to write out one big check which covered everything for that employee and let him see how much he costs me an hour and then let him sit down and pay all the taxes, insurance, and other thing that I pay on his behalf every week.

re: Any conservatives concerned with growing wealth discrepancy?(Posted by Taxing Authority on 12/12/12 at 11:02 am to Jake88)

quote:Unless the country is in rapid decline, how does the disparity not grow over time? The least you could earn in 1933 was $0. The Least you can earn now is $0. The most you could earn in 1933 was probably 10, 20 million. The most you can earn today is billions. There is a floor to income but no ceiling, thankfully.

THIS!

And further consider inflation. Someone making $120,000 in 1933 was far richer than someone making $120,000 today because of inflation.

re: Any conservatives concerned with growing wealth discrepancy?(Posted by Taxing Authority on 12/12/12 at 11:07 am to NC_Tigah)

quote:Your enemy is the cost of debt. Debt service, or interest on the debt, is the fastest growing portion of the US budget. It currently runs 10.5% of revenue. Interest on the debt is our only truly nondiscretionary budget item

re: Any conservatives concerned with growing wealth discrepancy?(Posted by Zach on 12/12/12 at 11:31 am to Jim Rockford)

quote:I would argue that their has never been a free market outside of economic theory.

The closest thing to a free market in US history would be the unincorporated territories of the Old West. The settlers did not immediately bring sheriffs, judges and state legislators along with them. That came later.

re: Any conservatives concerned with growing wealth discrepancy?(Posted by crawdaddy52 on 12/12/12 at 12:55 pm to austingator)

Manufacturing has been any thing but destroyed. We are still the largest manufacturer in the world. Manufacturing has been a growing sector in the US despite the recent economic downturn. the growth has come in the high tech, high wage, specialized, smaller factory sector. The international economy we live in resulted in sweat shop like factories - textiles in the south - to move to poorer low wage countries. That's a good thing.

re: Any conservatives concerned with growing wealth discrepancy?(Posted by NC_Tigah on 12/12/12 at 3:47 pm to Taxing Authority)

quote:

quote:Unless the country is in rapid decline, how does the disparity not grow over time? The least you could earn in 1933 was $0. The Least you can earn now is $0. The most you could earn in 1933 was probably 10, 20 million. The most you can earn today is billions. There is a floor to income but no ceiling, thankfully.

THIS!

And further consider inflation. Someone making $120,000 in 1933 was far richer than someone making $120,000 today because of inflation.